Dwelling
by function
Summary: Charon visits Underworld after a few months away with the Vaultie. one shot.


"Why are you still out here? I heard the mall has been pretty quiet."

Charon leaned against the concrete ledge that lead down to the metro. Arms crossed and body hunched.

"Every town needs a Welcome Center, you know," Willow smiled and slung her rifle to her back. She swung her hips as she walked closer to him, tapping his boot with her own. Months had passed since his last visit-a "vacation" his sightseer liked to call it.

Charon's eyes stayed on the mall, watching dust float in the horizon. The line where the ground met the buildings always blurred around dusk. Willow was one of the few reasons he kept returning to Underworld. The place was full of memories he'd rather forget, events that often replayed in his nightmares. But it was familiar, the faces, the walls, the smell. He knew it the way he knew his own gun.

"Cigarette?" Willow grinned as Charon glanced back.

She lit one and Charon's careful fingers plucked the stick from her mouth and not the one she was offering. He smirked as he felt the moistness of the paper on his own lips. From _her_ bright red lips.

"How's your little tourist?"

He shrugged and watched her step in front of him, one leg between his. "Still a kid. Dumb and reckless. Has a house out in Big Town, now."

She hummed and a large plume of smoke fell from her nose. "How long you staying this time?"

"Long enough to need work." He pulled a flake of tobacco from his tongue.

"Winthrop can probably find you something. In the mean time, though, I've got some ways to keep you occupied." Willow's finger slid between Charon's belt and jacket, moving side to side.

Charon huffed. "I would rather get some rest right now."

"Do you still have a key?" she stepped back and he nodded.

"Find me when you wake up."

* * *

Her room was simple. A bed, a dresser, a few shelves of food. She had hung up old carpets on the walls. He tossed his things on the dresser and peeled off his clothes. He saw her in everything. The empty nuka cola and vodka bottles with red lipstick on the mouths. The ripped stockings she had hung up. She saved food packages to draw on, little sketches of the mall, old buildings from her dreams. Her scent was soaked into the bed. He breathed her in with his face in the pillow.

His nightmares were manageable in an empty room in a guarded town, if Underworld could be called a 'town'. He would thrash and wake up, reaching for his gun in terror. It took a while for his mind to exit the dream and enter the reality of a quiet bed.

Charon was out again by the time Willow came in. He was grinding what was left of his teeth and his hands were balled into fists. She watched him closely as she changed her clothes, ready to talk him back to earth if he saw red.

* * *

Charon found her drinking with Tulip, leaning over the counter while they flipped through a book. Her shorts were small enough that he could see the faded remnants of a tattoo up the back of her thigh. It was just a blur at this point, but he could make out a few swirls and dots. Tulip shrunk at the sight of Charon causing Willow to turn around.

"Good evening, sunshine," she was drunk already.

He glared in response with his hands in his pockets.

"Fine, fine. Let's get you a few drinks."

The drinks from Carol were strong. Willow had one in each hand, waiting for Charon to finish his first before taking another. Quinn found poker chips and more playing cards during his last run and everyone was determined to win big. Winthrop explained the rules of Texas Hold 'Em while a small crowd gathered on the first floor. Quinn looked up at Willow and she winked back.

Charon noticed a new design cut into Willow's leg. Small slices of skin had been removed, revealing the muscle above her left knee. There were three flowers and a small vine that twisted around them. It was better done than the rough stars on her right shoulder. Tulip was getting better.

Willow saw him staring at it, so she twisted on the bench and placed her legs in his lap.

"You like it?"

He nodded and rubbed his fingers over the design, his thumb sliding against scarred skin and dipping into ragged muscle beneath.

"You never see flowers anymore, but I thought it would be prettier than getting a dead tree stump."

Charon had seen flowers. He'd seen thick true green sprout from sprawling branches. The vaultie had taken him north to a crevice in the hills. Inside were several cultists worshiping a ghoul stuck in a tree. But there were also flowers, small and fragrant. The ground was soft and grassy. It was a million words he'd never been able to use since the bombs dropped. Fresh. Lush. Plentiful.

But it was also dying, a word he knew so tangibly it was the blood in his veins. The vaultie had killed the ghoul whose heart had kept the gardens growing, by request of the ghoul himself. Charon knew the paradise wouldn't last. It couldn't. He left with the vaultie, embarrassed for the small bits of happiness he felt upon arriving.

Willow watched him chug the rest of his drink, a small drip of it sliding down the side of his chin. He wiped his face with his hand and reached for the next one. His fingers drifted further up her leg, from the cut flowers to the ridged muscles of her thigh. They were thick and round, parts covered in thin blocks of fat, dyed to match her skin.

"I deserve it," she said, nodding at him.

"What?"

"That fat I got. I deserve to have it."

Charon nodded because she was right. To be something other than malnourished was an accomplishment and she was right to show it off. He admired how proud Willow was of her body. Some ghouls hated their bodies, always compared themselves to smoothskins. Others, like Willow, wore revealing clothes and cut designs into their skin. They embraced their new silhouettes. She still wore lipstick around her mouth where her lips had once been before melting into the flesh of her face. She let Snowflake dye her hair. She used a burnt cork from a wine bottle as eye liner. She wanted everyone to see her beauty.

Charon saw it best. He saw the twitch of her stomach when she was winning at cards. He saw the smooth turn of her neck when someone pissed her off. The years he stood in the corner of Ahzrukhal's bar, he saw her in every degree. But he was all duty around his employer and wasn't easily switched off when he had time to himself. When they were finally alone and his mind wasn't guarding a smarmy bastard, it was all hot mouths and desperate hands making up for lost time.

A few more drinks and Charon had finally caught up to Willow, a warm buzzing in his body. Every few minutes Willow would complain that she left her cigarettes in her room. It was nice to be somewhere familiar again. He recognized all the noises from the air conditioner, water pipes, footsteps on the ceramic floor. He also recognized residents that were less than pleasant when he worked for Ahzrukhal. Abusive taunts that gnashed against him. His employer would laugh and join in. Charon didn't want to face them now. Not that it mattered since they dodged from his sight. No Ahzrukhal: no buffer.

Willow pulled him along, telling him about all the new repairs Winthrop had made, the arguments among the residents, the new doctor working with Barrows. Snowflake had been getting more work since Quinn met a merchant with a box of wigs. That just meant that Snowflake could afford some ultrajet coming in from Murphy.

When they made it to Willow's room, Charon's hand was between her legs and his mouth on her ear. Inside he pressed her against the door while she shimmied her shorts and shoes off. He tongued her neck and shoved his own pants down, letting them fall to his ankles. He picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his waist, one hand guiding him into her. They fucked against the door, her arms holding tight to his shoulders while bucking her hips into his.

"You're gonna make my neighbors jealous, Charon."

Her voice. She wanted him to say his name again and again with that perfect voice.

He grunted. "I don't care."

But _she_ did, so he slipped out of her, turned around, and scuffled to the bed to drop her in it. It took a few moments to take off his boots and step out of his pants. Willow had missed his broad shoulders, the long chunk of skin on his chest that always look like it was the next one to go, his sad eyes. He crawled up the bed, kissing parts of her along the way. The flowers on her knee, the rough skin on her hip, the strip of flesh between where her breasts once were.

"I've missed you, Charon."

He didn't believe he was good enough to be missed, but he thought it was nice of her to say.

"I've missed you, too."


End file.
